


Better Off

by lavellanpls



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 10:44:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13316454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavellanpls/pseuds/lavellanpls
Summary: For the prompt: "One thing Lavellan wishes she could have said to any one of her companions"Dorian speaks without thinking. A mistake he will not make again.“In the South you have alienages, slums, both human and elven. The desperate have no way out. Back home, a poor man can sell himself. As a slave, he could have a position of respect, comfort, and could even support a family. Some slaves are treated poorly, it’s true. But do you honestly think inescapable poverty is better?”





	Better Off

**Author's Note:**

> * Originally posted in a collection of drabbles, but it felt like it needed its own fic...  
> let's get fuckin ANGRY

They’d spoken of so many things.

Magic, magisters, his  _mother_ —Lavellan was full of questions and Dorian did so enjoy having someone actually show interest in what he had to say. The shameless flirtations weren’t terrible, either. Nothing would come of it, obviously, but. It was still rather fun. Lilith treated flirting like a sport, and Dorian was all too happy to play that game. (Also, she frequently referred to him as “babe,” and that was  _entirely_  too much fun.)

Debates were veritable events, discussions mired in playful banter. They spoke of many things. Dorian always enjoyed it.

They spoke of Tevinter.

She asked about slavery, and Dorian didn’t think to be wary. Lilith asked about many things.

“Did you have slaves?” she asked.

“Not personally,” he said. “But my family does, and treats them well. Honestly, I never thought much about it until I came South. Back home, it’s...how it is? Slaves are everywhere. You don’t question it. I’m not even certain many slaves do.”

She was supposed to reply with something glib. Some teasing flirtation, a playfully antagonistic remark. She was supposed to make some kind of joke. She didn’t.

The crooked line of her smile turned sharp. “How can you not question it?”

He frowned at the steely curtness of her voice. “In the South you have alienages, slums, both human and elven. The desperate have no way out. Back home, a poor man can sell himself. As a slave, he could have a position of respect, comfort, and could even support a family. Some slaves are treated poorly, it’s true. But do you honestly think inescapable poverty is better?”

He thought she would argue. She didn’t.

She backhanded him with a ringing  _slap_  across the face. Her eyes burned; the branching lines of her tattoos bunched in a furious scowl.

“ _How dare you_ ,” she seethed. The muscles of her arms tensed, fingers curling into fists. “ _People,_ ” she hissed, “are not things to be _sold_.”

For a horrid flash of an instant Dorian felt the burn of indignation rise like bile in his throat. Words spit out with the bite of a viper. “How  _dare_  I?” he scoffed, and couldn’t dull a venomous edge. “I don’t know what it’s like to be a slave, true. I never thought about it until I saw how different it was here. But I suspect  _you_  don’t know, either, nor should you believe that every tale of Tevinter excess is the norm.”

He thought she’d slap him again.

She didn’t.

She stared him hard in the eye, fury-frozen and unblinking; tossed back the bunched muscles of her shoulders and stood at full height. “I like you, Dorian,” she said. “But I need to explain something to you.”

This was never part of the game. This was not fun.

He tried not to look shaken. “Abuse heaped upon those without power,” he shot back, “isn’t limited to Tevinter, my friend.”

Lavellan bit out the crisp command, “ _Hold your tongue,”_ and Dorian’s jaw sealed shut. “You need to gain some perspective, son, and you need to do it quick.” When she stepped forward Dorian had to fight the urge to move back. “You’re going to ask me how I know? How I’m qualified to  _argue?”_ Her voice rings clear, heavy with a millennia worth of rage. “My very heritage is saturated with the blood of those you would call ‘better off.’ These are my people. My history.  _My death_. Don’t you  _dare_ deign to tell me how my suffering is ‘better.’”

“I-”

Oh.

 _Oh_.

“Have you lost anyone?” she demanded. “Family? Friends?”

“I…suppose, but-”

“ _This is not loss,_ ” she hissed. “ _This is more than loss._  To be stripped of personhood is a conscious state of death, and you know nothing of death.” Her fingers curled into his robes like claws in flesh. “ _You know nothing of my deaths._ ”

He wished she would have slapped him again. When she released her hold on his collar it felt like being pried from a lion’s jaws.

“I like you,” she repeated, “but you will not bring that shit into my Inquisition. You either care about people or you don’t. There is no grey. Not here. Not with me.”

Lilith couldn’t have stood more than two inches above five feet tall. Somehow she still loomed over him like a rolling storm.

“Poverty is not death,” she stated. “A poor man is still his own man. A slave is a  _thing_ , and how dare you equate them.  _People are people._ We are not _things_. We will never again be  _things. Never._ Do you understand?”

“…yes.”

“No pity for abusers. No mercy for oppressors.  _And no tolerance for masters_.” The frigid stillness of her eyes stung like ice on bare skin. “I will never be a  _thing._ I will never be  _bought._ Do you understand?”

“…I’m sorry.” He rarely said it and meant it so profoundly. Today was…more than rare. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

“That’s not an excuse.”

He thought to argue— _this is part of my society, part of my culture, this is a societal norm, I’ve never been made to question it_ —but he stayed silent. It felt blasphemous not to.

“You’re a smart man,” she said. “A  _clever_  man. And if you’re conscious enough to criticize Tevinter, then you’re more than capable of knowing that a person’s life is not a commodity to be owned.  _People are not owned._ And there is no excuse to absolve you of fault. You’re part of the problem or you’re part of the solution. Inaction— _to not think—_ does not make you less guilty.”

He wished she’d just slap him again.

“This conversation isn’t happening again. There are no baby steps. This isn’t a process. It’s not  _food for thought_. This is inalienable truth, and there is no grey. Slavery is  _wrong_. You are  _wrong_. This is the end of the world as we know it, and I will not face it with someone who does not  _think_.” Her eyes were ice, were fire, were steel. Dorian’s bones felt full of dust. “Do you understand?”

“I do,” he said, and his voice came out subdued this time. He no longer felt like being contrary. “I…I’m sorry.”

“Then learn,” she said. “ _Be better_.”

“Yes. I… I never meant it like that. I’m sorry.”

She laid a hand on his shoulder, and her fingers curled just a touch too tightly into the curve of his bones. “ _Learn_ ,” she repeated. “ _Think_.” When she finally released him and stepped back it felt like watching a great beast sink back into the sea. Dorian felt his resolve splinter and crack like a ship lost to a storm.

The burn of Lavellan’s eyes ebbed back to placid glass, calm returning in a flash. “We still on for drinks tonight?”

“Drinks,” he shakenly echoed. “Ah. Yes.”

“Good.” She snapped off a loose mock salute and turned to leave, divine fury seemingly contained. The rigid lines of her muscles softened, the wrathful goddess melting back into easy smiles and clear eyes. “Later, babe.”

Dorian still felt glass in his bones.

 


End file.
